Tuesday, January 28, 2014

UPDATE,
November 21, 2014: As of today, Dennehy's murder victims number 4
rather than 3. John Rogers finally succumbed to injuries caused by being
stabbed 40 times.

***

Lesbianism:

Joanna Dennehy told friends she was a lesbian. During her
trial a CCTV (dated 2012/04/02) recording was played which showed Dennehy
flirting with a female cashier. [See: Hugo Gye, “Caught on CCTV: Chilling
moment serial killer Dennehy flirted with a female shop assistant before going
out in search of more victims,” Jan. 21, 2014]

***

On November 18, Joanna Dennehy, 31, of Bifield,
Peterborough, Cambridgeshire surprised her own defense attorney by pleading
guilty to three murders, two attempted murders and three counts of preventing a
lawful burial.

“I’ve pleaded guilty and that’s that,” Dennehy told the
judge at her arraignment hearing. When her attorney requested a delay in order
to advise his client she interrupted him saying “I’m not coming back down here
again just to say the same stuff. It’s a long way to come to say the same thing
I have just said.”

Dennehy was arrested April 3,
2013, the day after she was spotted in Hereford in the act of randomly stabbing
two men, Robin Bereza and John Roger, in broad
daylight. Both were seriously wounded yet survived. Police of several
municipalities jointed together and tracked down the stabber quickly, her green
star tattoo under the right eye making her easy to spot. Dennehy’s boyfriend,
Gary “Stretch” Richards, one of the tallest men in
England at 7’ 3”, was arrested with her. “Stretch,” along with two other men,
are charged with assisting Dennehy in disposing of the bodies of the three men
she stabbed to death, whose bodies had been discarded in two cases in the
countryside. All three men suspected of assisting Dennehy following her
crimes denied charge of being accessory to the murders and to denying the
lawful burial of the corpses and to perverting the course of justice.

The three murdered men wereKevin Lee, 48, who died of multiple stabs wounds, killed on March 29 and
whose body discovered March 30; Lukasz Slaboszewski, 31, who was stabbed in the
heart sometime between March 19 and 29; John Chapman, 56, who died from
multiple stabs in neck and chest on March 29.

Dennehy had previously been convicted of crimes, but police
withheld the details.

~ Trial ~

Ms. Dennehy’s accomplice Gary Richards testified in court on
January 21, 2014, that in April of the previous year she had asked him to
accompany her in one of her forays in search of a stranger to stab to death,
that: “I want my fun. I need you to get my fun.”

Another accomplice, Mark Lloyd described to the court how
Ms. Dennehy went about getting the fun she sought: “She [Dennehy] takes a knife
out of her left pocket with her right hand. She strikes him like in the film
Psycho, just like that. Thrusting and putting her whole weight behind it...
Gary is seeing exactly what I’m seeing and there’s just no emotion from him at
all.”

***

FULL TEXT: Serial killer Joanna Dennehy plotted to cut off
guard's finger to escape jail. She hoped
to use the finger to beat the prison’s biometric security, a source claimed.
But the plot – detailed in a written plan by Dennehy – was thwarted when two
fellow inmates got in touch with the authorities.

Dennehy plotted the prison break while in segregation at
Britain’s most secure women-only jail – HMP Bronzefield, in Ashford, Surrey.
The source said: “With the help of another lifer, she was planning an escape.
What came to light was how she was going to do it, which was extremely vicious.

“It involved killing a prison officer and also mutilating
another. “This was for biometrics, to cut off her finger for the print. Two
prisoners grassed her up and told the officer what was happening. “There was a
lockdown and the Home Office was notified.”

The serial killer was sent to HMP Bronzefield after her
arrest last April. The category-A jail is the largest women’s prison in Europe.

It has housed some of Britain’s most notorious inmates,
including Rose West – who got a life term in 1995 for murdering 10 girls – and
Karen Matthews, who faked the kidnap of her daughter Shannon and was released
from jail in 2012.

Dennehy is believed to have started planning her escape in
early September, but prison officers were alerted before anybody was attacked.

A Prison Service spokeswoman said: “In September, vigilant
searches by staff at HMP Bronzefield uncovered intelligence which could have
been interpreted as an escape plan.

“The matter was dealt with swiftly, with no security
breaches, and a prisoner was relocated to the segregation unit.” Surrey Police
said an investigation into the planned prison break had been launched. A
spokeswoman said: “We are aware of allegations of a planned escape from HMP
Bronzefield. An investigation is ongoing but there have been no arrests or
charges.”

Bronzefield, which opened in 2004, is the only purpose-built
private prison solely for women. It has a 12-bed mother and baby unit and
offers full-time education courses tailored to women.

The
Dennehy case is the fourth female serial killer case (one in which there were
two female perpetrators) in 2013 known to this writer. The others occurred in
Colombia, France, Poland and the United States.

On January 29, 45-year-old Esneda
Ruiz Cataño was arrested Ebéjico, in Antioquia, Colombia, on the suspicion
of murdering thee husbands, each of them stabbed to death: in 2001, 2006 and
2010. The media has dubbed her “The Predator” (“La deepredafora”). Ruiz
collected live insurance payments following each death.

On March 24, a French woman, identified only as Audrey
C.,” a 32-year-old waitress in Ambérieu-en-Bugey, confessed to drowning her
two newborn babies, whose bodies were found in her freezer. Yet she had
murdered another newborn years earlier and had been imprisoned for that crime.
In that first killing, Audrey put body of her murdered child in a bag, then
convinced her own mother to discard it. Audrey was originally sentenced to 15
years in prison for infanticide, while her mother received an 18-year jail
sentence. She was released from prison in 2010.

On April 10, a woman called by the court, “Lucyna
D.,” 41, of Lubawa, Poland, confessed to murdering three newborn boys and
keeping their corpses in her freezer because she “could not part from them.”

On June 21, Diane
Staudte, 51, and her daughter, Rachel Staudte, 22, of Springfield, Missouri,
USA, were charged with the poison murders of two family members and the
attempted murder of a third. The elder Staudte told detectives that she chose
to terminate the life of her husband Mark because she “hated him.” Her son
Shawn, she asserted, deserved to diebecause he was “worse than a pest.” Daughter Sarah, who survived the
attempt on her life, but barely, was deemed not fit to live by her mother
because she “would not get a job and had student loans that had to be paid.” At
first the killer mom attempted to cover up daughter Rachel’s role as an
accessory. Yet ultimately Rachel was revealed to have planned and executed the
crimes in tandem with her malicious mother. Antifreeze was the mother and
daughter serial murder team’s poison of choice.

To date, the longest list of female serial killers (cases
with 3 or more victims) was published by Peter Vronsky in 2007 in his book, Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women
Become Monsters. This list contains 140 cases. Subsequent research by The
Unknown History of Misandry project has turned up a total number five
times this size (over 700 cases with 3 or more victims — from across the
globe).

[Robert St. Estephe]

***

EXCERPT: Sean Keeble who met Dennehy at a friend's house
while she was on the run from police, noted that she seemed happy to see
herself on TV. On asking her why she killed, she told him: "I want to
murder men, I want to be a serial killer, write a book and be famous." [Priya
Joshi, “Joanna Dennehy: Three Male Accomplices Obsessed by ‘Kill Bill' Serial
Killer Convicted for Murders: Joanna Dennehy: I want to be a serial killer,
write a book and be famous,” International Business Times, Feb. 12, 2014]

Friday, January 24, 2014

Eadburh(Old English:Ēadburh),
also spelledEadburg, (flourished 789-802) was the
daughter of KingOffa
of Merciaand
Queen Cynethryth. She was the wife of King Beorhtric of Wessex, and according
toAsser'sLife ofAlfred the Greatshe
accidentally killed her husband by poison. She fled to Francia, where she is
said to have been offered the chance of marryingCharlemagne,
but ruined the opportunity. Instead she was appointed as the abbess of a
convent. Here she is said to have fornicated with an English exile. As a result
she was eventually expelled from the monastery and ended her days begging in
the streets of Pavia. [Excerpt from Wikipedia]

***

Here is a more
detailed account Eadburgh’s poisoning career and aftermath, taken from the
medieval chronicle by Welsh monk John Asser and retold by Charles Dickens in “A
Child’s History of England” (1851):

“This Queen Edburga was a handsome murderess, who poisoned
people when they offended her. One day she mixed a cup of poison for a certain
noble belonging to the court, but her husband drank of it, too, by mistake, and
died. Upon this, the people revolted in great crowds, and running to the
palace, and thundering at the gates, cried, “Down with the wicked queen who
poisons men!” They drove her out of the country, and abolished the title she
had disgraced. When years passed away, some travellers came home from Italy,
and said that in the town of Pavia they had been a ragged beggar woman – who had
once been handsome, but was then shriveled, bent, and yellow – wandering about
the streets, crying for bread; and that this beggar woman; and that this beggar
woman was the poisoning English queen. It was, indeed, Edburga; and so she
died, without a shelter for her wretched head.”

Thursday, January 23, 2014

“After
birth abortion” (the right of a mother (exclusive right of the female sex) to legally order a child to be put to death for the first 2+ years of its life (because if the mother were to put the child up for adoption this could cause her "distress")

Alimony
racketeering (“gold-digging”)

Authoritarian
manipulation of children

Blacklisting
(especially in university context, ejecting non-compliant intellectuals
from the conversation)

Many members of the International Men’s Human Rights
Movement hate these things. That is why the Men’s Human Rights Movement is
called a “”hate group” by authoritarians drunk with a greed for power and a
lust for manipulation and coercive control of others.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

FULL TEXT: A recent telegram from
London states that some shocking revelations have been made in connection with baby-farming at Warasdin, a town 36 miles from
Agram, the capital of Croatia (Austria). Several miscreants had been arrested,
who, it was ascertained, systematically practised shocking cruelties on
children in order to produce various kinds of deformity for the purpose of
exciting sympathy of the public. In some cases it was discovered that children
were purposely crippled so that they might accompany beggars on their rounds.
Children were found whose legs and arms had been deliberately broken while
others had had their eyes gouged out so as to make them blind. One unfortunate
child was found with its body bent double, and kept in that position by being
placed between boards tightly screwed together. Various horrible implements of
torture intended to be used for producing deformity in children were also
brought to light.

FULL TEXT: The court of assizes of
the Cote d’Or, has just been occupied three days (says Galignani) in the trial
of a woman named [Marie] Gagey, aged thirty-five, for poisoning an old man
named Dougerelles, formerly a workman at the Imperial printing office, lived
for some years at Semur on a pension of 600 fr., and had besides a considerable
sum in his possession. In September last year he resolved to remove to
Arnay-sous-Vitteaux, and he arranged to board and lodge in a public house kept
by the woman and her husband. He went there on the 2nd October, and took with
him in his portmanteau a sum of 9500 fr., chiefly in gold.

The woman knew that he was well to
do, but she asked her servant who carried his portmanteau up stairs if it was
heavy, and if she had not heard money chink in it. On being answered in the
affirmative, she said “He is well off, the old fellow!” and she subsequently
told another person that her new lodger had at least 3000 fr. Some days after
Dougerolles, after breakfasting, was seized with violent vomitings and pains in
the bowels. The medical man who was called in did notdoubt for a moment that he had been poisoned. He employed all
the resources of his art; but the old man died after a few hours’ of dreadful
sufferings. The next day the judge de paix went to put the seals on his
effects, and found that his portmanteau had been forced open, and it contained
no money at all, nor anything of value.

It immediately became rumoured, that the map
had been poisoned and robbed. On this, some gendarmes were placed in the house
to prevent anything from being touched until a judicial investigation could be
made, After a while, the woman taking advantage of a moment in which she thought
herself unobserved, slipped a little packet from a cupboard into her pockets.
The packet was seized, and was found to contain arsenic. Questioned as to how
the become possessed of the poison, then stated that she had found it, in the
presence of a neighbour, under the bed of Dougerelles, a few days before his
death; but the neighbour positively denied that she had done anything of the
kind. She was arrested, and the body of the deceased was examined. The stomach
exhibited all the signs of poisoning, and a considerable quantity of arsenic
was found inits contents. Arsenic was also found
in whathe had thrown up.

The arsenic, it appeared, had been
put in some coffee, and this coffee had been prepared by the woman. Before the
man’s death she had been inconvenienced for money; immediately after it she
paid a creditor 200 fr., her husband paid another 507 [semi-legible] fr., and
on searching her house about 700 fr., were found.

Moreover, part of the man’s clothes
were discovered secreted on her premises, after her arrest, it was discovered
that in April, 1845 one of her husband’s aunts named Claudine, died suddenly,
and with all the symptoms of poisoning, after being attended by her, her
husband being the woman’s heir. In December, 1849, she went to visit another
aunt of her husband, to whom he was also heir, named Reine Comrad. When she
arrivedReine was in good health; but on
accepting some bread and wine, offered by the womanfor her breakfast, she was seized with rockingpains in her bowels, and after repeating
vomitings and frightful sufferings, died. In March 1851, one of the woman’s own
children, a girl aged only fourteen days, was suddenly seized with vomitings,
and died. In May, 1852, another of her children, a boy, aged four days, was
also seized with vomitings, and died.

The bodies of the two women and the two children were dug up, and
in the bowels of all arsenic was found. In addition to all this there was
strong reasons to suspect that the accused had, in 1845, poisoned a woman named
Bernard to whom her husband owed a life rent of 300 fr.; that woman having
been taken ill after being visited by her, and having died with all the
symptoms of poisoning. The jury brought in a verdict of guilty, and the courtcondemned the woman to death.

Monday, January 20, 2014

FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 2): New Hampshire,
Sept. 15. – There is much speculation over the strange and apparently
unaccountable deaths that have recently occurred in two well-known families
here. A reporter of THE SUN has succeeded in gleaning the following facts about
them. In adjoining houses in one of the principal streets lived Mr. Barton G.
Towne and Dr. Frank Bugbee. The family of the former consisted of himself, his
wife, and her daughter, Miss Nellie Webb, Dr. and Mrs. Bugbee, Hattie Bugbee,
14 years old, and Hannah H. Regan, a servant girl, made up the other household.
Mrs. Bugbee was a daughter ofMrs. Towns, and the families were of
course very intimate. All the members of both families were warmly attached to
each other.

On July 18 Miss Hattie, Dr. Bugbee’s
daughter, was stricken with diphtheria, and lived but a few days. Just five
days after her death Mrs. Bugbee was taken ill and died almost immediately. Her
death was soon followed by the death of the servant, and this in turn by the
sickness of Dr. Bugbee. Dr. Bugbee soon recovered and went about his dally
duties, but was again obliged to give up and leave town to try to regain his
health. He went to various places, and finally visited Derby Line, Vt., where
resided two brothers of his who were practicing physicians. Returning from
there he was taken suddenly sick and died in a few days.

The physicians said that his disease was
malignant diphtheria and blood poisoning, the same disease that had carried off
the members of his household.

The death of so many people in one locality
gave rise to the supposition that the cause might be imperfect drainage, and
the Board of Health made an investigation without finding anything out of the
way. In November Mrs. Towne. Mrs. Bugbee’s mother was taken ill and died very
suddenly. The doctors said again that it was blood poisoning. The sixth and
last death, that of Mr. Towns, occurred in the following manner, and with
similar symptoms, on February of the present year.

To determine the cause of so many deaths in
one part of the town the authorities caused Mr. Towne’s body to be exhumed in
May, and an analysis of the stomach made by a local chemist revealed to the
horror of the community that he had been poisoned by arsenic, which was found
in considerable quantities. In August the bodies of Dr. and Mrs. Bugbee and
Mrs. Towns were examined, and the vital organs were submitted to Prof. Wood of
Cambridge, who, about two weeks ago, reported that no poison was found in the
case of Mrs. Bugbee. The report in the case of Dr. Bugbee and Mrs. Town, just
received, shows that in the former traces of whiskey and arsenic were found,
and in the latter arsenic alone. As these reports leave the case, the first
three persons who died – Miss Hattie and Mrs. Bugbee and Hannah Regan – died
from natural causes, and Dr. Bugbee and Mr. and Mrs. Towne came to their death
by poison.

The only member of the two families living is
Miss Nellie Webb, who, last fall, married Burt Mayo, a conductor on the B. C.
M. Railroad. She has been a member of the Towne family since she was a very
little child, and had shown the utmost affection for all the members of both
families. For some reason suspicion rested on her, but there is no proof
whatever and she has the sympathy of the community.

When Dr. Bugbee returned from Derby Line he
brought a demijohn of whiskey. which he considered better than could be
obtained in town, and cave this medicinally to Miss Webb, Mr. and Mrs. Towne,
and a brother of the Townes from Littleton, N. H. All were made more or less
sick by its use.

[“Arsenic, Not Diphtheria. – A Singular
Series Of Death In A New Hampshire Village. – Only One Member of Two Families
Surviving – exhuming the Bodies – Arsenic Found in Three of Them – A Suggested
Explanation.” The Sun (New York, N.Y.), Sep. 16, 1881, p. 1]

***

EXCERPT (Article 2 of 2): All eyes were on the day of
October 18, 1881, as the Coös County Grand Jury convened to look into the
mysterious deaths. Then on the 26th the Gazette told readers that after two days devoted to the case, the
jury returned and “no indictment was found.” The jury felt that the evidence
that would have indicted Nellie Webb Mayo was insufficient and circumstantial.

Many in Lancaster were not convinced, including the executor
of the Bugbee estate, James W. Weeks. This is brought out in an entry in
Richard P. Kent’s diary for December 15, 1881, where he noted: Mr. J. W. Weeks
made a lengthy call at our house and talked over the incidents connected with
the Towne and Bugbee families. He had no doubt of the guilt of the suspected
party, although the Grand Jury failed to indict her.”

Saturday, January 18, 2014

NOTE: The following fragmentary description does not
indicate whether the case in question, in which a woman had poisoned three
persons, involved the death of each victim nor whether the crimes were serial
in nature. The case is, nevertheless of great interest, thus it is included in
the serial killer category her provisionally pending the discovery of more
details.

***

EXCERPT: Another notable example is that of an old woman
with gray hair, who becomes homicidal when she is deprived of a beautiful
golden wig suited to a girl of seventeen. The experiment was tried one, but so
much violence resulted that the Commissioners recommended that she should be
allowed to retain her headdress.

Before admission to the asylum she had poisoned three
persons. But the wig and plenty of pink powder keep her peaceable and content.

***

FULL TEXT: It is a curious fact that many insane women are
possessed with an insatiable vanity and a mania for “make-up,” says the London
Express.

Sometimes the only way to keep the peace with such patients
is to allow them a certain freedom in the use of cosmetics.

A wave of unmanageableness often passes over the woman’s
side of an asylum if the material of a new uniform dress deserves the title of
dowdy.

Many insane women will tear a somber brown gown to shreds.
But if it is a pretty blue or a smart red, they preserve it carefully against
spots and dust.

The effect that dress has on the insane is so well known
that the Lunacy Commissioners make special comments in their official reports
to the Lord Chancellor on the colors and materials of the gowns supplied to
women in the various asylums.

Very clever devices to obtain cosmetics are resorted to by
patients infected with the mania of vanity, who have been accustomed to
artificial aids to beauty.

They soak paper roses in water and use the tinted result as
a check reader. Or they put the red covers of books borrowed from the asylum
library in a basin of boiling water and bottle the carmine fluid for future
face use. Fresh flowers of reddish tinge are crushed and used on faded checks
and wrinkled skins.

One former society beauty, now in an asylum, is perfectly
tractable so long as she is allowed to water a curly false fringe and to use a
modified amount of rouge and powder. If these are taken away she becomes
suicidal and refuses to eat.

Another notable example is that of an old woman with gray
hair, who becomes homicidal when she is deprived of a beautiful golden wig suited
to a girl of seventeen. The experiment was tried one, but so much violence
resulted that the Commissioners recommended that she should be allowed to
retain their headdress.

Before admission to the asylum she had poisoned three
persons. But the wig and plenty of pink powder keep her peaceable and content.

The friends of patients who find their happiness in personal
decoration bring them small packets of cosmetics, or rather they smuggle them
in, for such articles are contraband and against the rules. Though their minds
are gone, the patients are clever enough to make little holes in their
mattresses and to invent most cunning biding places for their treasures.

In those case where restriction of toilet appliances
increase insane outbreaks, the attendants let these little beauty stores pass
by unnoticed. So long as the make up is not too evident the attendants do not
interfere.

Strictly speaking curl papers are not allowed in asylums. As
a matter of fact their use is overlooked. Curled fringes and wavy locks often
make all the difference between peace and rebellion. The ingenuity displayed by
feeble in turning every-day articles to facial use is often surprising.

Brickdust, scrapped from the asylum walls, and powdered
hearthstone have frequently figured in lieu of rouge currant jam provided a
week’s roses for pale cheeks. Indellable [sic] pencil, coal dust and black lead
make a dark stain for colorless eyelashes and outline deficient or white
eyebrows.

A handful of flour, begged from the kitchen, is an excellent
substitute for toilet powder, while gray or faded hair is sometimes tinted with
a strong decoction of tea leaves. A tendency to tight lace to such tiny
proportions as to interfere with sanity and bodily health in another foible of
the woman with unhinged mind. Abnormal waists are counteracted by lacing the
corset with elastic.

An insane asylum would not seem to offer many temptations to
its inmates to rival one another in dress and beauty. But generations of women
patients appear to make themselves happy by following a feminine instinct to be
personally attractive.

[“Varieties of the Insane – Domestics, Wigs And Curl Papers
In Demand In Asylums. – Brick Dust in Lieu of Rouge – Crazy Women Who Are
Fastidious in Regard to Their Families – Rivalry of Dress Among the Mentally
Unsound.” The Turners Falls Reporter (Ma.), Sep. 26, 1900, p. 7]

[Note: The phrase in the original “was tried one,” has been
corrected to “was tried once”]

Saturday, January 11, 2014

“Betty Jo Green of Athens,
Alabama, only killed an ex-husband and a sister-in-law, but her legal defense
wins the prize. Green claimed "she had another woman living in the left
side of her body." She, or they, were convicted anyway and are serving a
life term in the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women.”[Don Noble,Forgotten Tales of
Alabama, The History Press, 2013]

***

FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 2): Athens – An Athens woman was
sentenced to three life terms in prison Friday for the poisoning deaths of two
relatives and the attempted murder of her fiance.

Limestone County Circuit Judge Henry Blizzard ordered that
Betty Jo Green’s three life sentences run consecutively.

A circuit court found the 55-year-old former waitress guilty
of two counts of murder on Sept. 30. The charges stemmed from the arsenic
poisoning deaths of her husband, GlennOrman Green, who died in 1978, and her sister-in-law, Grace Blankenship,
who died in 1978.

She was also found guilty of attempted murder in the
poisoning of her fiance, Arthur Self.

After Mrs. Green’s arrestin November 1984, police said she admitted putting arsenic in the
victims’ coffee.

FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 2): Athens – Criminal history
appeared to repeat itself Thursday with the announcement of the arrest of a
Limestone County woman who allegedly used arsenic to poison her late ex-husband
and to try to kill her fiance.

Sheriff Mike Blakely said Betty Jo Green, 53, of Athens was
arrested Wednesday night and charged with the death six years ago of her
ex-husband and attempted murder of her daughter, who was poisoned in 1979.

Arthur Self, an Athens businessman described as Green’s
fiance, was admitted as Green’s fiance, was admitted to Huntsville Hospital
Nov. 5 for treatment of an illness later diagnosed as being caused by ingestion
of a “chronic dose” of arsenic, Blakely said.

The sheriff said medical officials notified law enforcement
authorities and an investigation was launched by his office Nov. 18.

The investigation led authorities to believe that Green’s
ex-husband, Glenn of Athens, who died at the age of 61 on Nov. 30, 1978, might
have been murdered.

Blakeley said officials obtained authority to exhume Green’s
body Wednesday morning from a grave in the old Decatur city cemetery. The body,
he said, was sent to the state’s forensic sciences laboratory in Birmingham
where pathologists “found a large quantity of arsenic in her.”

At that point, Blakely said, a warrant was issued for Betty
Jo Green’s arrest and she later surrendered.

Late Thursday afternoon, she was taken before Circuit Judge
Henry Blizzard, who set total bond at $100,000 – $50,000 each for murder and
attempted murder. She was still in jail Thursday night.

The sheriff said it was possible that Green would be charged
with responsibility for one or more additional deaths. He refused to identify
who the other suspected victims might have been.

“It’s possible there will be other exhumations,” Blakely
said.

He declined to comment on possible motives or additional
evidence involved in Green’s case.

Hilley, now serving a life sentence, was arrested in 1979
but fled from Alabama before her scheduled trial and was missing for three
years until she was discovered living under an assumed identity in New England.

The former Anniston secretary was charged with murder after
authorities exhumed the body of her late husband, Frank. The body was exhumed
after Hilley’s daughter, Carol, was diagnosed as suffering from arsenic
poisoning.

Friday, January 10, 2014

In
the end, Mrs. Sparling went free. But Dr. Robert A. McGregor was convicted of
murdering Cyril Sparling. She had received insurance payments after the deaths
of her husband and two older sons. In 1914, after charges were dropped against
her for playing a role in the murder of Cyril, Carrie Sparling submitted a
claim for an insurance payment on a policy she had taken out on is life.

***

FULL
TEXT (Article 1 of 5): Ubly, Mich., Nov. 22.— Dr. R. A. McGregor, the family
physician and Margaret Gibbs, a professional nurse, who has been staying at the
Sparling home since the death of Cyril Sparling last August, were arrested and
taken to jail, following the coroner's inquest, over the body of Albert
Sparling today.

The
verdict given out by the coroner's jury was that all three brothers, Peter,
Albert and Cyril, met death by arsenic poisoning. Mrs. Carrie Boddy [sic]
Sparling the mother, was not detained.

Sparling
was the third of a family of four men who died within two years, under
circumstances startlingly similar to the deaths of the relatives of Louise Vermilya, the Chicago poison suspect. He died last May.

The
first death was that of John W. Sparling, husband and father, who died in July,
1909. Peter, the oldest boy, died just one year later. Then came Albert's
death, and last August Cyril, the youngest son, died.

In
each case, the disease of which the men died, it is alleged, baffled physicians
in attendance, but the symptoms were similar in each instance. The suspicions
of the authorities were aroused by the fourth death the mysterious chain of
fatalities.

Mrs.
Carrie Sparling, mother and wife, realized $4,000 from the four deaths it is
said. The police claim this was motive for the crime.

[“Physician
And Nurse Held Four Deaths,” The Day Book (Chicago, Il.), Nov. 22, 1911, p. 32]

***

FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 5): Bad Axe, Mich., Dec. 15 – The
mother of Cyril Sparling, for whose death by poison Dr. Robert A. McGregor of
Ubly, was held today to the circuit court on a charge of murder, will be served
with a warrant tomorrow charging her with poisoning her son, it was announced
by Sheriff Donald McAuley of Huron. A nurse charged with being an accessory
after the fact was held at the conclusion of a preliminary examination made
sensational by the testimony of Sheriff McAuley, the last witness for the
prosecution.

McAuley, said that the inquest to determine the cause of
Cyril Sparling’s death, Dr. McGregor asked him if the authorities were going to
exhume the bodies of the other Sparlings. Four members of the family, three
sons and the father, died of a suspicious element.

”’If you do,’ said Dr. McGregor to me,” continued Sheriff
McAuley, “I know you will find poison. If you fellows will take up Albert
Sparling and find arsenic in him. I know of a man who can make Mrs. Sparling
confess.’

”McGregor answered I would have to look in the glass to find
him.’”

Further Sheriff McAuley testified that McGregor said.

“Mrs. Sparling sent me word that you fellows were there and
for me to stick to the same story that she told Professor Boomhower. That was
the first time in my life I ever lost confidence in Mrs. Sparling.”

At the conclusion of the sheriff’s testimony, Dr. McGregor's attorney said:

“I ask to have Dr. McGregor bound over to the circuit where
he can have a full and complete vindication before a jury.”

FULL
TEXT (Article 3 of 5): Mich., Jan. 31.-- A coroner's jury today conducting
inquests to the cause of death of Wesley Sparling, Sr.. and his son, Peter
Sparling, decided that both men came to their death from poisoning Dean Vaughn
of the University of Michigan reported be found traces of arsenic in both
stomachs.

Some
time ago University of Michigan chemists, who examined the viscera of Cyril and
Albert Sparling, the other two sons, reported they found arsenic.

Mrs.
John Wesley Sparling, Sr., the mother and Dr. Robert A. MacGregor at Ubly, the
family physician, are now waiting trial in circuit court on charges of first
degree murder.

Miss
Margaret Glbbs, a nurse, who attended the Sparlings, was bound over for trial
on a charge of being accessory after the fact. The Sparling home is at Ubly.

The
little village of Ubly, Mich., with scarcely 500 population, has a poison case
which bids fair to take its place among the sensational mysteries of recent
times.

Four
members of one family John Wesley Sparling, the father, and three sons within a
period of two years died under peculiar circumstances, and it has been shown by
examinations made by experts that the deaths were due to arsenic poisoning.

Dr.
Robert A MacGregor is now in jail it at the county seat at Bad Ave, while the
nurse is out on bail.

[“Poison Mystery Deepens - Wife, Doctor, Nurse Held - Four
men of Sparling family believed to have been poisoned and the doctor and two
women who are in custody on charges of murder. -Four Deaths are Found to Have Resulted From
Use of Arsenic.” The Salt Lake Tribune (Ut.), Feb. 1, 1912, p. 1]

***

FULL
TEXT (Article 4 of 5): Bad Axe, Mich., March 21 – The Sparling poisoning case
is to come up at the circuit court session starting here next Monday, and it is
scarcely an exaggeration to say that every person in Huron County, and many
beyond the county borders and even across the Canadian line, is awaiting the
developments of the trial with eager interest. The case is regarded ns one of
the most complex that has over come before the criminal courts in Michigan.

The
defendants in the case are Mrs. Carrie Bodie Sparling, the wife and mother of
the alleged victims of a wholesale poisoning plot, and Dr. Robert Macgregor,
the Sparling family physician. Dr. Macgregor formerly lived in London, Ont.,
but for several years has resided in the village of Ubly, a short distance
south of this city, and the home of the Sparling family.

John
Wesley Sparling, head of the family, was the first one to die. He was stricken
in July, 1908. Two years later the eldest son, Peter Sparling, was similarly
stricken. Albert Sparling was the next to die, and the last was Cyril Sparling,
20 years old, who died last August. In two of the cases a verdict of arsenic
poisoning was, returned by the coroner’s jury.

Each
of the victims was attended by Dr. Macgregor and laterremoved for treatment to a hospital in London, Ont., where the
deaths occurred. In this hospital Miss Marguerite Gibbs, said to be a friend of
Dr. Macgregor, was employed as a nurse. Following the coroner's verdict in the
case of Albert Sparling, Miss Gibbs was arrested and bound over on a charge of
accessory after the fact in the cases of Mrs. Sparling and Dr. Macgregor
Indictments charging first degree murder were returned.

It is
understood that Mrs. Sparling and Dr. Macgregor are to be tried first for the
alleged murder of Cyril Sparling, the fourth and last of the family to die
under mysterious circumstances. Little has been made public concerning the
evidence upon which the indictments were based. Even the probable motive that
may have resulted in the alleged slaying or the father and three sons can only
be guessed at by outsiders, though there is a general disposition to connect it
with the fact that the victim carried life insurance and the policies were
written by the father of Dr. Macgregor, a retired life insurance agent living
in London, Ont.

Attorney
Boomhower has secured, the services of a prominent criminal lawyer to assist
him in unraveling the mystery. He declare he has unearthed additional facts in
the case which, when presented at the trial, will greatly strengthen the
prosecution.

Nearly
one hundred witnesses already have been subpoenaed to testify at the trial.

FULL
TEXT (Article 5 of 5): Feb. 19. – Another feature of the Sparling murder
mystery, for which Dr. MacGregor is now serving a life sentence at Jackson
prison, have developed in connection with the proposed suit which is to be
instituted by Paul Woodworth of Bad Axe, attorney for Mrs. Carrie Sparling,
against the Gleaner organization.

Suit
is to be brought, it is said to collect the $1,000 insurance policy on the life
of Cyril Sparling. It was for the murder of young Sparling by poison that Dr.
MacGregor was sent to prison for life. Mrs. Carrie Sparling, mother of the dead
boy, is named as the beneficiary in the policy. It is alleged that a demand was
made on the Gleaners for the amount that payment was refused because of the
circumstances under which young Sparling died and because Mrs. Sparling was
charged with complicity. A short time ago the charge against Mrs. Sparling was
dismissed.

At
the recent biennial meetingof the
Gleaners at Toledo, the Sparling claim was turned down. It is understood that a
petition is being circulated among the members of the Gleaners’ lodgers at Ulby
and Bad Axe to have the order pay the claim. The papers in the suit have been
drawn up. Mrs. Sparling is visiting friends at Ulby.

Mrs. Sparling says the young man requires constant care to keep him from collapsing and dying as his brothers did.

FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 4): Jacksonville, Ill., Jun. 15 –
Another dark affair is creating a good deal of excitement in our city. Some
time since three of the children of a Mrs. Wahle, residing in this city,
suddenly died, and at periods not far apart. Mrs. W. has since taken a trip to
Europe, and during her absence suspicion was aroused, and the body of one of
the children was taken up, and the contents of the stomach chemically examined.
There was found in it a large quantity of poison. Mrs. Wahle has lately
returned from Europe, and on yesterday she was arrested, to be held until the
affair can be investigated.

[Untitled, Chicago Tribune (Il.), Jun. 17, 1869, p. 1]

***

FULL
TEXT (Article 2 of 4): A horrible case of child-murder is about being developed
in Jacksonville, Mass. It appears that about one year ago a child of one Wahle,
11 months old, was suddenly taken sick and died. It was buried, no suspicious
circumstances being at that time discovered. Since, however, the parents of the
child have separated, in consequence of the alleged intimacy of the wife with
the family physician, who attended the child. Recently a letter directed to the
wife from her sister in Germany, fell into the hands of Wahle, and from that
letter he gets the startling information that the child came to his death by poison
administered by the mother. The sister speaks of the poison which the mother
used to kill her last child, and from this comes another inference that four
other children, the fruits of their marriage, who suddenly died before, may
have been poisoned. Wahle had the child exhumed, and its stomach subjected to a
chemical analysis, which revealed the fact that arsenic had caused the death of
the child. Suspicion points strongly to the complicity of the physician with
the mother.

FULL
TEXT (Article 3 of 4): A telegram from Jacksonville, Illinois, says our city has been treated to
another sensation, and another murder trial is possible. A warrant has been
issued for the arrest of the wife of W. W. Wahle, dyer and scourer, of this
city. She is suspected of having poisoned one, if not more of her children. The
body of the last one of the five who are buried his been disinterred and
examined by an analytical chemist of St. Louis, who reports the finding of
metallic poison in the entrails, and says it is obvious that the child came to
its death by the administration of arsenic. A letter from Germany, intercepted
by Mr. Wahle, and the finding of three parcels of poison in the house aroused
his suspicion, and caused him to have the warrant issued, though no arrest has
yet been made. The child died last July, and during the next month Mrs. Wahle
went to Germany. She returned in March, and has not lived with her husband
since, and, it is said, has sued tor a divorce.

FULL
TEXT (Article 4 of 4): The coroner’s jury at Jacksonville, Ill., who have been
investigating the Wahle poisoning case for two or three days, on Saturday
returned the following verdict: That the child Benny Wahle, who died July 12,
1868, came to “his death, we believe, by arsenic administered by some person or
persons to the jury unknown.” It seems that three or four of Mrs. Wahle’s
children have died mysteriously, but investigation has been held only in regard
to one. No steps have yet been taken to arraign Mrs. Wahle. [Untitled
(from “Chicago” column), Louisville Evening Express (Ky.), Jun. 28, 1869, p. 4]